Epiphany
We know the word: a moment of piercing awareness, the sudden jolt of understanding. This is the season of Epiphany, a season celebrating the revelation of the Savior, the light of the world. Throughout the season we focus on the ministry of Jesus: the calling of the disciples, the teachings of Christ, his miracles, and finally his transfiguration. The epiphany of Epiphany is that this is no mere teacher or prophet— this is the Son of God, the Messiah. Epiphany calls us to live God’s mission, announcing the good news of Christ’s arrival to every culture and to those who live across the street. We, the church, are sent out as the manifestation of Jesus to a watching world (from Seeking God’s Face by Philip Reinders).
- Calling -
O Lord, open our lips.
And our mouth shall proclaim Your praise.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen. Alleluia!
The Lord has manifested his glory:
O come, let us adore him.
- Constitution -
Read/Listen, Meditate, Pray, and Contemplate on God’s Word, remembering that God is with you and ready to speak to you because he loves you.
Praying the Psalms
Psalm 73
A Psalm of Asaph.
[1] Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
[2] But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
[3] For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
[4] For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
[5] They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
[6] Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
[7] Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
[8] They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
[9] They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
[10] Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.
[11] And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
[12] Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
[13] All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
[14] For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
[15] If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
[16] But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
[17] until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
[18] Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
[19] How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
[20] Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
[21] When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
[22] I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
[23] Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
[24] You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
[25] Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
[26] My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
[27] For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
[28] But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
Psalm 74
A Maskil of Asaph.
[1] O God, why do you cast us off forever?
Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
[2] Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old,
which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!
Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.
[3] Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!
[4] Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place;
they set up their own signs for signs.
[5] They were like those who swing axes
in a forest of trees.
[6] And all its carved wood
they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
[7] They set your sanctuary on fire;
they profaned the dwelling place of your name,
bringing it down to the ground.
[8] They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
[9] We do not see our signs;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is none among us who knows how long.
[10] How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
[11] Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!
[12] Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
[13] You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
[14] You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
[15] You split open springs and brooks;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
[16] Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
[17] You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.
[18] Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs,
and a foolish people reviles your name.
[19] Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts;
do not forget the life of your poor forever.
[20] Have regard for the covenant,
for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
[21] Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame;
let the poor and needy praise your name.
[22] Arise, O God, defend your cause;
remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!
[23] Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!
Old Testament Reading
Job 4
[1] Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:
[2] “If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
Yet who can keep from speaking?
[3] Behold, you have instructed many,
and you have strengthened the weak hands.
[4] Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,
and you have made firm the feeble knees.
[5] But now it has come to you, and you are impatient;
it touches you, and you are dismayed.
[6] Is not your fear of God your confidence,
and the integrity of your ways your hope?
[7] “Remember: who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
[8] As I have seen, those who plow iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
[9] By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.
[10] The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion,
the teeth of the young lions are broken.
[11] The strong lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.
[12] “Now a word was brought to me stealthily;
my ear received the whisper of it.
[13] Amid thoughts from visions of the night,
when deep sleep falls on men,
[14] dread came upon me, and trembling,
which made all my bones shake.
[15] A spirit glided past my face;
the hair of my flesh stood up.
[16] It stood still,
but I could not discern its appearance.
A form was before my eyes;
there was silence, then I heard a voice:
[17] ‘Can mortal man be in the right before God?
Can a man be pure before his Maker?
[18] Even in his servants he puts no trust,
and his angels he charges with error;
[19] how much more those who dwell in houses of clay,
whose foundation is in the dust,
who are crushed like the moth.
[20] Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces;
they perish forever without anyone regarding it.
[21] Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them,
do they not die, and that without wisdom?’
New Testament Reading
Romans 8
[1] There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. [3] For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, [4] in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. [5] For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. [6] For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. [7] For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. [8] Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
[9] You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. [10] But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. [11] If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
[12] So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. [13] For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. [14] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. [15] For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” [16] The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, [17] and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
[18] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. [19] For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. [20] For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope [21] that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. [22] For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. [23] And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. [24] For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? [25] But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
[26] Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. [27] And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. [28] And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. [29] For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. [30] And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
[31] What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? [32] He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? [33] Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. [34] Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. [35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? [36] As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
[37] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. [38] For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
- Communion -
Pray for yourself, others, our church, our neighbors, and the world.
Pray the Lord’s Prayer & the collect of the week:
Our Father who art in heaven...
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
- Commission -
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14)
Let us go forth in the name of Christ.